“Kristof missed the boat on this one. If [Kristof] wants to know why professors are reluctant to enter public debate, he needs to address the quality of public debate in the US political arena. Both the governor of Wisconsin http://bit.ly/1c5FUrS and attorney general of Virginia http://bit.ly/NftpnE have recently used the powers of their offices to investigate and threaten the livelihoods of professors who opposed their political agendas (labor unions and climate change, respectively). [Politicians] have essentially demanded that professors NOT bring their expertise to bear on public debate and professors, understandably, have mostly complied.”

(c) Columbia’s James Hansen (2010, 2014) http://bit.ly/omiMY3 who alerted the world to anthropogenic global warming in 1981 http://nyti.ms/1gwHUMm. In a recent draft Renewable Energy, Nuclear Power, and Galileo: Do Scientists Have a Duty to Expose Popular Misconceptions?http://bit.ly/1goLfgs, Hansen rebuffs 4 widespread misconceptions: human life is endangered by nuclear power; renewable energy sources alone are sufficient; killing nuclear would make the world safer; and renewable energy is cheaper and faster than nuclear power. Below I quote Hansen at some length because: (1) nuclear power is so controversial; and (2) so doing allows me to insert references, hot-links, and comments.
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REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 26 Feb 2014.]
Hake, R.R. 2014. “Reich, McKibbon, & Hansen: Three Academicians Who Have Spoken Out on Social Issues,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/1k9QuX5.The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.